


Rise into Light

by lei_che_sogna



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Explosions, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, POV Derek Hale, POV Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:02:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lei_che_sogna/pseuds/lei_che_sogna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drummer by night, office drone for Argent Global by day, Stiles Stilinski is just happy he can jam with his friends and still pay the bills. But a surprise encounter is about to shake things up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A social mess

“Mr. Bulinski! Take a seat,” Mr. Finstock says, without looking up from a very full manila file folder. Finstock may be Stiles’ manager and head of Research, but his office is the kind of place nobody should have to stay for any length of time; it’s not because the place is cramped (which it is), or poorly lit (like some of the worse public bathrooms Stiles has seen in his time), or smells kinda funky. It’s that Finstock’s office is inhabited by Finstock, who has crazy eyes, and crazy hair, and a way of squintily looking at you with deep suspicion. He’s like Smaug, if Smaug hoarded stacks of paper instead of gold.

“It’s Stilinski. Stiles,” he says, sitting in the chair in front of Finstock’s desk, which starts to make his ass go numb almost right away. He kicks his bag under his feet and wishes he’d had time to drop it off at his desk before coming here.

Finstock squints at the tab on the file folder, which must mean that it’s Stiles’ file, which means he’s in trouble. Probably. Maybe he’s about to get fired. It’s bad enough that it’s 9:01 a.m. on a Monday, he barely got his jacket off, and he’s still dehydrated from last night’s gig. And his student loans aren’t going to pay off themselves. He bites on the skin inside his cheek and tries to look reliable, and not like his brain isn’t going nuclear.

Stiles waits for Finstock to make some observation about his real first name, which is apparently so weird that nobody even makes a token effort of pronouncing it any more. Thankfully, Finstock just makes a face, shrugs, and takes another sip from the coffee mug perched precariously atop his in-tray. The top sheet of the tray comes with it, since it’s stuck to the bottom of the mug.

“So, Stilinski, why do you think I asked you to come in?" He raises his eyebrows, which adds to his general appearance of absent-minded professor. Or escaped mental patient.

Stiles waits a beat, in case it’s a trick question. Finstock has what HR calls ‘an unorthodox management style’. "Because you wanted to say hi?" "Because I wanted to say hi!" Finstock agrees, leaning over the desk towards Stiles.

“Really?”

“Sure!” Finstock says, hunching over his desk and fixing Stiles with a look. There isn’t much blinking involved. Stiles blinks a few extra times to make up for it. His eyes feel like sandpaper, and he hopes they’re not too bloodshot. The coffee is taking a long time to kick in. Maybe he’s immune now. Maybe he needs to up his intake again. Finstock is saying something else.

“How are you doing?”

“Great!” Stiles says. If he isn’t in too much trouble, although he has no idea what for (it could be any number of things, his brain reminds him, from drinking too much office coffee on up), maybe he can talk his way out of it. “I love doing research, and being part of the best team, and working for the best boss, at the best company, and life is, um,” he swallows around an extra-dry throat, “really great right now," he finishes weakly.

Finstock is nodding along with him, eyes still fixed on Stiles’ face. He keeps on nodding for a good thirty seconds after Stiles is finished talking. Then he sighs deeply and sits back in his own chair, which creaks in protest. The phone on Finstock’s desk starts to ring.

“Greenberg, can you get that?” Finstock shouts through the open door and into the outer office, which means he pretty much shouts directly into Stiles’ face.

“Greenberg?” There’s no answer from the outer office, but the ringing stops.

"Great!" Finstock barks, shooting upright suddenly. Stiles, lulled into a false sense of security, jerks involuntarily. “Great’s what I see in these reports,” he says, slapping at Stiles’ file. “Solid work, very thorough.”

“…Thanks?” Stiles gets out, but Finstock isn’t done.

“It isn’t all I see,” he says, pacing up and down behind his desk. He does a rapid about-face and picks up the file. “For the most part,” he continues, flipping through some more pages, “Lotta good feedback in here. Your reports could be shorter; the one on—” he pauses to flip over another page, “—groundwater contamination levels probably didn’t need the plot summary of Erin Brokovich in there.”

Shit.

“That was a test. To see who read the whole thing?” Stiles cringes inwardly. When you were compiling a report upwards of a hundred pages from a variety of sources for an audience of eight at most, you tended to take your job satisfaction where you could find it. He likes sprinkling his work with pop culture references, and his dad is a big Julia Roberts fan.

“Don’t worry, you’re not getting fired,” Finstock says.

Stiles tries not to deflate out of sheer relief.

“Like I said, solid work, but it looks like you’re not being challenged. Here at Argent Global,” which Finstock can’t say without using air quotes, which go with the crazy eyes like onion rings and Nutella, “We want all of our employees to succeed. Because we're the best company in the city. And to be the best company, we need the best people. Do you want to be the best?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes… please?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Finstock, sir!” Stiles says, and resists the urge to salute.

“Smartass.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re bored, we’re gonna challenge you,” Finstock says, sitting down again. His chair protests this move. “Big project coming up. We’re looking at expanding the Mexico office…”

Thank god he’s not getting fired. He might’ve had to move back in with his Dad. Or he’d have to awkwardly third wheel it with Scott and Allison in their Apartment of Love. Finstock is still going.

“…For the next couple of months. You guys will be getting data together, info crunching, putting it in pie charts and all that stuff the stuffed shirts upstairs love. You in?”

“I just wanted to say, I really appreciate this opportunity. I’m looking forward to expanding my skill set.” Writing reports, along with a lifetime of living with an overprotective single parent who also happens to be a police sergeant, has really honed Stiles’ bullshitting skills.

“Good.”

“Just one question. Do I get a raise for the extra work?”

“Get out.”

Stiles scoops up his bag and gets out of there. “Thank you!” he exclaims, waving behind him at Finstock.

"Greenberg will email you the details. Make sure you meet with Hall by the end of the week. Go get 'em, tiger!" Finstock shouts after him, as the office door swings shut.

“Wait!” But the door is closed, and he really doesn’t want to go back in there and ask Finstock to repeat himself because Stiles maybe wasn’t listening for a few seconds and missed the part where he has to work with Derek Hall.

Stiles lurches over to an empty chair in the hallway and swings his bag onto it, blocking it with his body to stop it falling onto the floor. He leans over it, fishing out his empty travel mug. It’s time for more coffee. He powers down the dim hallway, wishing for the millionth time that R&D wasn’t in the basement. Driving in this morning had been a perfect spring day; blue sky, with a couple of fluffy clouds hanging high up and not interfering with the sunbeams powering full-force across his dash. If he pretended to be a smoker, he might at least get some fresh air. At the end of the hall, he turns left at the bank of elevators and follows his nose. The coffee vapors pull him the rest of the way to the break room.

Running low on caffeine as Stiles is, he almost plows into someone. A very particular someone in a dark gray suit. Green eyes glare at him from behind black-rimmed glasses. A jawline Stiles occasionally (okay, most of the time) imagines licking tenses in annoyance. It just wouldn’t be a normal day if he didn’t do something to piss off Derek Hall.

“Wow. If I say your name three times in front of a mirror, do you appear?” Why why _why_.

“Morning, Stilinski.” Stiles is treated to the sight of Derek’s broad shoulders as he turns away to refill his mug.

“Sorry, it’s funny, we were just talking about you, and here you are,” Stiles says, waving at the hallway behind him.

“Funny, it’s almost like I work here.” Derek says. He nods once at the other man in the room and leaves. Even the air he leaves behind him in the break room smells good.

As soon as he’s gone, Stiles collapses into the empty chair, the better to contemplate his numerous failures at being a functioning adult. The seat is still warm.

“Dude,” the other man says, at length. Scott McCall, witness to Stiles’ hideous crash and burn, is Stiles’ best friend and the only person in the world Stiles is okay with seeing said crashing and burning.

“I know,” Stiles says.

“It's getting weird, man. Just ask him out.”

“One does not simply ask out a coworker!” Stiles hisses. “Especially when they only call you by your last name!” He closes his eyes, drops his head into his hands.

Fate has decided that Stiles is not destined to be happy in love. He can do the short-term thing okay, but if he catches feelings, everything conspires to destroy his life. His high school crush on Lydia Martin was long and painful as he pined from afar, while she dated and dumped and dated a series of increasingly handsome douchebags. He may have a degree from an institution of higher learning, and be a member of a band whose last album was critically acclaimed, but with certain people he always reverts back into his hyperactive teenage self, tripping over his own feet and talking until he runs out of breath. Well, he kinda does that anyway. But with a crush? He does it _more_.

“Oh my God, his face.” Stiles moans into his palms. “Leave me here to die.” He straightens up and stares at the empty doorway, wishing Derek back. “What were you guys talking about?”

Scott shrugs. “Dunno, stuff. It’s coming up on our three-year anniversary, and I wanted to take Allison somewhere nice.”

Stiles drags his eyes away from the empty doorframe. “He talked to you about personal stuff? He never talks to anybody about anything! Aside from work, obviously he talks about work, otherwise he’d get fired. Eventually.” The ‘R’ in R&D doesn’t exactly get much attention from the higher-ups, and by ‘much’ Stiles means ‘none at all, we’re just here in the basement forever and ever, amen.’ But it pays, thank God it pays.

“No, he really was interested. We mostly talked about Allison.”

Scott has that look he gets when he’s trying to memorize lyrics. Their own songs are fine, and he can pick up the chords to anything after listening to it once, but other peoples’ lyrics, not so much. When they were just starting out, nobody wanted to hire a band that didn’t play covers. Also they were in high school and terrible, but the covers thing was the real problem. If he’s honest with himself, that was the whole reason Erica joined the band.

“Do you think he likes Allison?”

“No, because the universe doesn’t hate me that much.” _I hope_ , Stiles mouths silently. He drags himself out of his chair and makes for the coffee machine. He's so distracted that he stares at the glass carafe for a minute and a half before realization hits him like a physical blow on the back of the head.

Derek drank all the coffee, the bastard.

“I think I love him,” Stiles sighs, and gets out the box of filters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from 'TAOS' by Menomena.


	2. Change it if you're gonna

 

Derek pulls his office door closed behind him with a satisfying thud. The fluorescent lights paint the dingy room stark white with cold blue undertones. The lights make a faint buzz that is barely noticeable to the normal human ear, but would drive him crazy if his control of his senses was less good. With one step he’s at his desk. Sitting behind it requires he squeeze himself into the tiny margin of space between the side of the desk and the wall. A quick listen reveals that nobody is about to follow him in, so he deftly leaps over the desk instead. He nearly hits his head on the cheap ceiling tiles in the process, but manages to duck just in time. Seated in his chair, he sips his still-full coffee and surveys his postage stamp-sized domain. It isn’t much, but it’s his.

Or it’s Derek Hall’s, and Derek Hall is who he is right now. Derek Hall has been working for Argent Global long enough to no longer be considered ‘the new guy.’ Derek Hall works efficiently and without complaint. Derek Hall comes in early. Derek Hall doesn’t take sick days.

Most important of all, Derek Hall is not a werewolf.

Derek would prefer the dark—his vision means he doesn’t need lights to see—but sitting in his office with the lights off would bring the kind of attention he’s trying to avoid. Working for a Hunter-run company that benefits Hunters and Hunter interests is walking a fine line. He has to be a model employee so he won’t get fired, but not good enough to draw attention from the higher-ups. Generally he just doesn’t put himself out there but always says the right thing when he gets called on in meetings.

Coffee finished, he brings up the Skype app on his phone and presses the most recent contact.

“This isn’t working,” he growls once the call connects.

His phone screen shows nothing but black, but the sounds of a frantically tapping keyboard can be heard. After a while, the keyboard stops. The screen flashes, then settles on a brunette woman in her mid-twenties, face lit by the glow of a computer screen.

“Sorry, Cora was messing with the camera earlier. God only knows what it does now.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Hi, Laura! Thanks for waking up in the middle of the night to listen to me bitch! You’re the best older sister a boy could have!” Laura singsongs. She blows him a raspberry and resumes typing.

“You weren’t asleep.”

“And you’ve only been at work for an hour.”

“Scott McCall wanted to talk. About restaurants.” There are no words in the English language to describe the pain involved. There was a discussion about the merits of chairs versus booths, during which McCall actually complained that sitting across from each other made it difficult for him to hold hands with his girlfriend.

“Sounds good. Did he have any recommendations? It’s been years, I bet a lot of new places have opened.”

“Laura.”

“Please, if you’d gotten anything, you would have told me already. You just want a chance to complain.”

“He’s taking Allison Argent out for their anniversary dinner. Three years. They’re having Italian. Maybe Amalfi, but probably Tonino’s.”

“Poor baby, that must have been really hard for you.”

Derek tries his hardest to kill her with the force of his stare.

“You keep doing that to your eyebrows, and they’re going to get stuck like that,” she says, and snorts when he flips her off. “It’s only been, what? Two months of Derek Hall, AG Research peon?”

“Three,” Derek growls. She knows exactly how long it’s been. It was her idea for him to be here in the first place.

“Three, okay. The files you got the other day were really good. I’m forwarding you the pertinent info as we speak.” No sooner has she finished her sentence than his phone alerts him to a new email.

Derek perks his ears up. Metaphorically. “Any new leads for me to look into?”

“Argent Global, or at least a shell company owned by your favorite AG CEO and mine Gerard Argent, owns two warehouses by the docks, way down on Torres by that abandoned car factory.” The second his mouth opens, she holds up a hand to stop him and continues, “And you are _not_ going in there by yourself.”

“Could be a black site.” The last Hunter place they’d gone into had one of those.

“If it is, you’re definitely not going in by yourself. Let’s wait and see if you can find anything else.” Derek has no hacking skills to speak of, but he can pick locks with his claws. Every idiot in this company has their password written on a Post-It somewhere in their desk.

“It’s not enough. These warehouses could be the key.”

Laura sighs, her own eyebrows drawing together. “We’ve been over this and over this. You know I can’t be there, so you can’t take risks. Not on your own.”

“I’m not a baby,” he mutters, feeling like he did when he was five and fell out of the tree she’d told him not to climb.

“You’re doing so well. They supply weapons to Hunters all over the world. There has to be something in their financials we can use. This is how we have to fight now. If they’re going down, we have to hit them in the wallet.”

“I won’t go inside. I’ll just take a look around.”

Laura sighs. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Derek waits her out.

“Okay, fine. Let’s see what Gerard’s doing with his secret warehouses,” Laura says. Her mouth is still a flat line, but it’s shaky around the corners, like she’s holding back a smile.

Derek’s about to end the call, mind on the night ahead, when Laura says, casual, “How’s Stilinski this week?”

It’s Derek’s turn to sigh. “God,” he says eloquently, and watches her mouth stretch into a real smile.

He disconnects before she can say anything else.

 

He has to wait until about nine p.m. for enough darkness to do some looking around. He can’t be seen climbing rooftops, after all.

This end of the docks is more or less deserted, except for the occasional crack den. The warehouses are a different story. It’s hard to find a decent vantage point when there are so many security guards on patrol. Finally he hunkers down in the shadow of a skylight, two buildings over. Then he shifts.

He can fully concentrate on his senses in this form. As an Alpha, Laura has inherited their mother’s gift of being able to turn fully into a wolf. Derek is only a Beta so he’s halfway there, a wolf/human hybrid. His heightened senses of sight, sound and smell are paired with fangs, claws, and wolflike facial features. He doesn’t look entirely ordinary, but to the human eye he can pass as a normal guy wearing a Halloween mask. Even six months too late (or too early) for Halloween, anyone who might see him will assume he’s eccentric or a criminal. Assuming that he’s a werewolf means assuming werewolves are real, and who’s going to make that mental leap?

The security patrols don’t have any gaps that he can see, and the compound (for what else can it be, surrounded by a barbed wire-topped electrified security fence as it is?) is also covered with the constant electronic eyes of security cameras. None of that worries Derek.

What does find troubling is that the buildings are soundproofed. Stretching out his senses, Derek can’t hear any heartbeats inside. Or any noise of any kind. It’s just an aural void.

He spends several hours memorizing the patrols. If they’re professionals they’ll change their pattern within a week, but he wants to have something to give Laura. He doesn’t see anyone but the security guards.

Frustrated, he decides to call it a night. He cheats a little and takes the long way back. He turns away from the bay, warehouses giving way to tightly-packed apartment buildings and convenience stores. With no clear route he leaps from building to building, just enjoying the night. He’s in no real hurry to report back to Laura, and he doesn’t have anywhere to be. Up here he can just exist, above the city that used to be his family’s.

He doesn’t realize that he’s been following a particular scent—petrichor and coffee, at once soothing and jittery—until he’s one street away from Stiles Stilinski.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Supercrush!' by Devin Townsend Project.
> 
> Thank you for the kudos and comments! I should mention that concrit is always welcome, especially for this story, which is the longest thing I've ever finished. And it is finished (thanks to the WiP BB!), but I'm uploading it as RL allows. Thank you (again!) for your patience.


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